Back in July, just a day before Donald Trump got on the phone with the president of Ukraine and asked for a favor.

There was a very different conversation going on over on Capitol Hill.

We will come to order.

A conversation between Robert Mueller and Representative Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

But this conversation was televised for everyone to see.

From your testimony today, I gather that you believe that knowingly accepting foreign assistance during a presidential campaign is an unethical thing to do.

And a crime.

And a crime.

Circumstances, yes.

And to the degree.

And a crime given certain circumstances.

Representative Schiff was almost mournful in how he spoke about national security in that hearing to me.

Yes, he was definitely, his tone was definitely more in sorrow than in anger that we have to be facing this and that all Americans should be concerned about it.

The Atlantic's Todd Purdom spoke to congressmanship as he prepared to question Mueller.

When he was getting ready to have Mr. Mueller testify, his expectations were realistic. He did not

think that in a stroke Mueller would change the political dynamic or change the substantive

information dynamic. He was looking forward to getting Mr. Mueller in front of his committee

to lay out in the best narrative fashion he could the story of the Russian interference

and why it was such a risk

and why going forward the United States has to be on guard against future such efforts.

A couple months later, watching this testimony, it's striking because Schiff ends his remarks

by worrying that our election system isn't safe, even now.

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